Daily Bible Reading Plans

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Recognizing the value of consistent reflection upon the Word of God in order to refocus one’s mind and heart upon Christ and His Gospel of peace, we provide several reading plans designed to cover the entire Bible in a year.

PRO 8:13 The fear of the LORD [is] to hate evil: pride, and arrogancy,

II. PETER IS SAYING IF YOU WANT THE GOOD LIFE, HERE ARE THE RULES:

A. Keep your tongue from speaking evil. You must not lie about, or slander another person.

1. Solomon declared that lying lips are an abomination to the Lord.

2. Back in the previous chapter Peter told us,

1PE 2:1 Wherefore lay aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings.

3. Think of how much trouble you have brought upon yourself by repeating gossip.

4. Think of the strife that gossip brings.

5. Think of all of the shame and pain you can bring on yourself when you choose to lie under oath.

B. The second rule, "Keep your lips from speaking guile."

1. Guile is deceitfulness.

2. It is not telling the whole truth.

3. It is making promises with mental reservations.

4. When one of my little granddaughters was in her twos, her mother heard noises from the other room that sounded like something being stirred in her purse, she called, Kelsey, are you in my purse? Whereupon my granddaughter giggled and said "No mama, I am not in your purse, just my hands are."

5. We are living in a day and age when men's words are filled with guile.

6. Remember the words of Jesus to Nathanael when He first met him? "Behold an Israelite in whom there is no guile." What seemed to be unusual in that day, is still unusual today, to find a man with no guile.

7. Look at what deceitfulness does to the person who practices it.

a. We have a classic example before us today.

b. The greatest problem I see is your loss of credibility.

c. Once you have violated trust, it is so difficult to ever gain it back again.

C. The third rule. "To eschew evil." To shun or avoid evil.

1. Again remember the conversation of God with Satan over Job. God declared of Job that he eschewed evil. That is he departed from or avoided evil.

a. The world today asks, "What is evil?" "What does evil mean?"

2. Here is one of the reasons why the world is in so much confusion today, trying to define the word evil.

a. Evil is a relative term. What is evil to you may not be evil to me. It all depends on the culture in which I was raised. So evil becomes a cultural thing.

b. The world says to the Church, "You have no right to impose your values on me."

c. Because the men who were on the bench of the supreme court of the United States acknowledged their inability to define the word obscene, to thus opened the door to all of the pornography that has polluted the minds of millions of people.

d. When you reject God's definition of a word and seek to eliminate Bible as a standard for absolutes in life, the result always is chaos, and confusion.

3. One of the great problems in the world today is the redefining of words and terms. Each man has created his own glossary.

a. What does the word sex mean? By strict definition it means gender, male or female. So the question "Did you ever have sex with that woman?" is a ridiculous question. But the term having sex with someone by usage has come to mean having physical contact that brings an orgasm. To know that the question was referring to the physical relationship but to answer the question with a denial is absolute deception and tantamount to a outright lie.

b. What is is?

c. This problem has invaded the church so the liberals by putting new definitions on words can sound like they are very sound in the fundamental truths of the faith.

d. Sin is defined as a poor self image.

e. Being born again is defined as a good self image.

f. So when the liberal pastor declares that men are trapped in sin, and need to be born again, it sounds very fundamental, but by their definition of the terms, they are not saying anything close to what we mean when we say those same words.

D. We are not just to avoid evil, but we must do good.

1. Many people have a very negative relationship with the Lord.

a. It is premised entirely on what I don't do.

b. I don't go to shows or dances.

c. I don't drink or smoke.

2. John the Baptist called on the people to bring forth fruit that demonstrated repentance.

3. Paul called on the Ephesians to, EPH 4:22 Put off concerning the former life the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; but it wasn't to stop there, he said, and put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.

a. They weren't to just stop lying, they were to start telling the truth.

b. They weren't to just stop stealing, but they were to get a job, so that they could give to those who were in need.

c. They weren't to just stop slandering others, but they were to seek to say things that would build up others and minister grace to the hearers.

4. So Peter says that we are to seek peace, to pursue it.

III. PETER GIVES THE FINAL RATIONAL, "FOR THE EYES OF THE LORD ARE OVER THE RIGHTEOUS, AND HIS EARS ARE OPEN TO THEIR PRAYERS: BUT THE FACE OF THE LORD IS AGAINST THEM THAT DO EVIL."

A. The bottom line is that the good life is living in fellowship with God.

B. The good life is doing the things approved by God.

CONTENT DISCLAIMER:

The Blue Letter Bible ministry and the BLB Institute hold to the historical,
conservative Christian faith, which includes a firm belief in the inerrancy
of Scripture. Since the text and audio content provided by BLB represent a
range of evangelical traditions, all of the ideas and principles conveyed
in the resource materials are not necessarily affirmed, in total, by this ministry.